A consensus appears to have emerged in the literature that per capita income levels and/or levels of productivity in the industrialized market economies have converged significantly over the last century, and especially since the end of the second world war (see, e.g., Abramovitz, Baumol, Baumol and Wolff, De Long, Dollar and Wolff, Dowrick and Nguyen). The results of Abramovitz and Baumol, in particular, highlight these trends. They found an almost perfect inverse relation between labor productivity levels in 1870 and the rate of labor productivity growth between 1870 and 1979 among sixteen OECD countries.Abramovitz also investigated subperiods and found that labor productivity convergence was much slower in the period before World War II than after. Indeed, even in the postwar period, there is evidence from Abramovitz and from Baumol and Wolff that productivity convergence slowed during the 1970s, though this is disputed by Dowrick and Nguyen, who find parameter stability in their catch-up model between pre-and post-1973 periods when controlling for growth of factor intensities. Results of De Long show little evidence of productivity convergence over the last century when the sample is no longer restricted to OECD countries. However, Baumol and Wolff, using the Summers and Heston's sample, which covers countries at all levels of development, find convergence in real GDP per capita among the top third or so of the countries over the 1950-81 period, though it was weaker than among OECD countries alone. More recently, Dollar and Wolff find evidence of convergence of to-

This article reports tests of aggregation over consumer food products and estimates of aggregate food demand elasticities. Evidence that food demand variables follow unit root processes leads us to build on and simplify existing tests of the Generalized Composite Commodity Theorem. We compute food demand elasticities using a method of cointegration that is shown to apply to a convenient but nonlinear functional form. Estimates are based on consumer reported expenditure data rather than commercial disappearance data. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

The U.S. dairy industry is undergoing rapid structural change, evolving from a structure including many small farmers in the Upper Midwest and Northeast to one that includes very large farms in new production regions. Small farms are struggling to retain competitiveness via improved management and low-input systems. Using data from USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey, we determine the extent of U.S. conventional and pasture-based milk production during 2003-2007, and estimate net returns, scale efficiency, and technical efficiency associated with the systems across different operation sizes. We compare the financial performance of small conventional and pasture-based producers with one another and with large-scale producers. A stochastic production frontier is used to analyze performance over the period for conventional and pasture technologies identified using a binomial logit model. Large conventional farms generally outperformed smaller farms using most economic measures-technical efficiency, various profitability measures, and returns to scale. Copyright No claim to original US government works (c) 2009 International Association of Agricultural Economists.

Purpose -The aim of this study is to use a financial approach based on the Du Pont expansion to investigate the impact of demographics, specialization, tenure, vertical integration, farm type, and regional location on the three levers of performance (ROE) -namely, net profit margins, asset turnover ratio, and asset-to-equity ratio. Design/methodology/approach -This research uses a system of equations in conjunction with 1996-2009 farm-level data from the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) to evaluate the factors driving farm-level profitability, namely, net profit margins, asset turnover ratio, and asset-to-equity ratio. The methodology employed in this study corrects heterogeneity and uses repeated cross-section estimation procedure to estimate the empirical models. Findings -The study finds that key drivers of net profit margins are operator education, farm size and typology, specialization, and level of government payments. Key factors affecting the asset turnover ratio component of the Du Pont model include asset turnover ratio is driven by operator age, contracting, specialization, and receiving government payments. Finally, key factors affecting asset-to-equity ratio component of the Du Pont model are farm size, farm typology, contracting, and specialization drive asset-to-equity ratio. Originality/value -Existing research does not examine the factors affecting returns to equity in faring at the farm-level. Specifically, a micro-level analysis of American farm's future structure and financial performance that accounts for the spatial and inter-temporal dimensions of profitability has never been conducted.

"Many factors shape the global network of bilateral trade including fundamental forces of supply and demand factors and government policies. This study uses the generalised gravity framework to distinguish among the different drivers that either deter or aid partner trade in land-intensive agriculture and labour-intensive clothing. The dataset used in the analysis includes bilateral trade among 70 countries in 1995, 2000 and 2005. Collectively, the 70 countries account for 85% of the world's trade in agriculture and 96% of its GDP. Empirical results lend support to the Heckscher-Ohlin explanation of trade, namely that relative factor endowments motivate cross-border trade. Results also show that tariffs are not always binding and bilateral free-trade agreements more often divert rather than create trade." Copyright (c) 2009 The Agricultural Economics Society. No claim to original US government works.

Recent international financial crises (East Asia in 1997, Russia in 1998, Brazil in 1999 and the speed with which they have spread across countries and regions have called into question the very desirability of financial globalization, that is, the opening of balance of payments' capital accounts in both developed and emerging economies since the mid 1980s. 1 Calls for a new, global financial architecture have multiplied, and new and old theoretical arguments for and against controlling capital flows (as well as domestic financial markets, especially banks) have been put forward (IMF, Rodrik, Stiglitz). There is little empirical evidence to support the debate over the potential effects of enhanced financial volatility at the sectoral level, and especially on the agricultural economy. Has international financial volatility actually affected real sectoral performance, and if so how?After briefly reviewing literature in this area, this paper introduces the methodology and preliminary results of an on-going research project that addresses that question with reference to agricultural commodity trade.

The extent of forage purchasing behavior in milk production and its impact on profitability are analyzed using data from the 2000 and 2005 dairy versions of the Agricultural Resource Management Survey. Forage outsourcing is more common with hay than with silage and haylage, and is more prevalent in the western United States. Though silage and haylage outsourcing is found to impact profitability, the major profitability drivers appear to be farm size and efficiency. Evidence of significant forage contracting is found in the western United States.

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